Aeolian (Natural Minor)
This scale is also known by other names: Minor, Natural Minor.
2 - 1 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 2About Aeolian (Natural Minor)
The A minor scale is the C major scale started from a different note: A B C D E F G, no sharps, no flats. Nothing is added and nothing removed — only the sense of where home is, and that alone turns the sound from bright to grave.
The same notes, a different centre
A B C D E F G, then A. Every note belongs to C major too, which is what relative keys are. The difference lies in which note the music returns to and which chord ends the phrase.
The two half steps — B to C and E to F — now fall in different places relative to the tonic: between the second and third degrees, and between the fifth and sixth. That placement is the whole definition of the natural minor.
Natural, harmonic and melodic
Played as written the scale is the natural minor, and its seventh degree, G, sits a whole tone below A — too far to pull strongly homeward. Music that wants that pull raises it to G♯, producing the harmonic minor and its distinctive step and a half between F and G♯.
The melodic minor raises the sixth as well when ascending, smoothing that gap, and reverts on the way down. All three are the same scale answering the same problem: the natural minor has a weak dominant.
What it builds
Am, a diminished B, C, Dm, Em, F and G. In practice the E minor is often played as E major — the harmonic minor’s G♯ turning the chord bright — because that is what makes the return to A minor feel final.
On guitar the scale sits in first position with several open strings, which is why so much beginner music in a minor key is written here rather than in D minor or E minor.
Related Scales from Diatonic
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